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Файл:The Silverado Squatters
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THE SEA FOGS
A change in the colour of the light usually called me in
the morning. By a certain hour, the long, vertical chinks
in our western gable, where the boards had shrunk and
separated, fl ashed suddenly into my eyes as stripes of dazzling blue, at once so dark and splendid that I used to marvel how the qualities could be combined. At an earlier hour,
the heavens in that quarter were still quietly coloured, but
the shoulder of the mountain which shuts in the canyon
already glowed with sunlight in a wonderful compound of
gold and rose and green; and this too would kindle, although
more mildly and with rainbow tints, the fi ssures of our crazy
gable. If I were sleeping heavily, it was the bold blue that
struck me awake; if more lightly, then I would come to myself in that earlier and fairier fi ght.
One Sunday morning, about fi ve, the fi rst brightness called
me. I rose and turned to the east, not for my devotions, but for
air. The night had been very still. The little private gale that blew
every evening in our canyon, for ten minutes or perhaps a quarter of an hour, had swiftly blown itself out; in the hours that
followed not a sigh of wind had shaken the treetops; and our
barrack, for all its breaches, was less fresh that morning than of
wont. But I had no sooner reached the window than I forgot all
71
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
else in the sight that met my eyes, and I made but two bounds
into my clothes, and down the crazy plank to the platform.
The sun was still concealed below the opposite hilltops,
though it was shining already, not twenty feet above my
head, on our own mountain slope. But the scene, beyond
a few near features, was entirely changed. Napa valley was
gone; gone were all the lower slopes and woody foothills of
the range; and in their place, not a thousand feet below me,
rolled a great level ocean. It was as though I had gone to bed
the night before, safe in a nook of inland mountains, and had
awakened in a bay upon the coast. I had seen these inundations from below; at Calistoga I had risen and gone abroad in
the early morning, coughing and sneezing, under fathoms on
fathoms of gray sea vapour, like a cloudy sky – a dull sight for
the artist, and a painful experience for the invalid. But to sit
aloft one’s self in the pure air and under the unclouded dome of
heaven, and thus look down on the submergence of the valley, was strangely different and even delightful to the eyes. Far
away were hilltops like little islands. Nearer, a smoky surf beat
about the foot of precipices and poured into all the coves of
these rough mountains. The colour of that fog ocean was
a thing never to be forgotten. For an instant, among the Hebrides and just about sundown, I have seen something like it on
the sea itself. But the white was not so opaline; nor was there,
what surprisingly increased the effect, that breathless, crystal
stillness over all. Even in its gentlest moods the salt sea travails, moaning among the weeds or lisping on the sand; but
that vast fog ocean lay in a trance of silence, nor did the sweet
air of the morning tremble with a sound.
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THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS
As I continued to sit upon the dump, I began to observe
that this sea was not so level as at fi rst sight it appeared to be.
Away in the extreme south, a little hill of fog arose against
the sky above the general surface, and as it had already caught
the sun, it shone on the horizon like the topsails of some giant ship. There were huge waves, stationary, as it seemed, like
waves in a frozen sea; and yet, as I looked again, I was not sure
but they were moving after all, with a slow and august advance.
And while I was yet doubting, a promontory of the some four
or fi ve miles away, conspicuous by a bouquet of tall pines, was
in a single instant overtaken and swallowed up. It reappeared
in a little, with its pines, but this time as an islet, and only to
be swallowed up once more and then for good. This set me
looking nearer, and I saw that in every cove along the line of
mountains the fog was being piled in higher and higher, as
though by some wind that was inaudible to me. I could trace
its progress, one pine tree fi rst growing hazy and then disappearing after another; although sometimes there was none of
this fore-running haze, but the whole opaque white ocean
gave a start and swallowed a piece of mountain at a gulp.
It was to fl ee these poisonous fogs that I had left the seaboard,
and climbed so high among the mountains. And now, behold,
here came the fog to besiege me in my chosen altitudes, and
yet came so beautifully that my fi rst thought was of welcome.
The sun had now gotten much higher, and through all
the gaps of the hills it cast long bars of gold across that white
ocean. An eagle, or some other very great bird of the mountain,
came wheeling over the nearer pine-tops, and hung, poised
and something sideways, as if to look abroad on that unwont-
73
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
ed desolation, spying, perhaps with terror, for the eyries of her
comrades. Then, with a long cry, she disappeared again towards
Lake County and the clearer air. At length it seemed to me as
if the fl ood were beginning to subside. The old landmarks, by
whose disappearance I had measured its advance, here a crag,
there a brave pine tree, now began, in the inverse order, to
make their reappearance into daylight. I judged all danger of
the fog was over. This was not Noah’s fl ood; it was but a morning spring, and would now drift out seaward whence it came.
So, mightily relieved, and a good deal exhilarated by the sight,
I went into the house to light the fi re.
I suppose it was nearly seven when I once more mounted
the platform to look abroad. The fog ocean had swelled up
enormously since last I saw it; and a few hundred feet below
me, in the deep gap where the Toll House stands and the road
runs through into Lake County, it had already topped the slope,
and was pouring over and down the other side like driving
smoke. The wind had climbed along with it; and though I was
still in calm air, I could see the trees tossing below me, and
their long, strident sighing mounted to me where I stood.
Half an hour later, the fog had surmounted all the ridge on
the opposite side of the gap, though a shoulder of the mountain still warded it out of our canyon. Napa valley and its
bounding hills were now utterly blotted out. The fog, sunny
white in the sunshine, was pouring over into Lake County
in a huge, ragged cataract, tossing treetops appearing and disappearing in the spray. The air struck with a little chill, and
set me coughing. It smelt strong of the fog, like the smell of
a washing-house, but with a shrewd tang of the sea salt.
74
THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS
Had it not been for two things – the sheltering spur
which answered as a dyke, and the great valley on the other
side which rapidly engulfed whatever mounted – our own
little platform in the canyon must have been already buried
a hundred feet in salt and poisonous air. As it was, the interest of the scene entirely occupied our minds. We were set just
out of the wind, and but just above the fog; we could listen to
the voice of the one as to music on the stage; we could plunge
our eyes down into the other, as into some fl owing stream from
over the parapet of a bridge; thus we looked on upon a strange,
impetuous, silent, shifting exhibition of the powers of nature,
and saw the familiar landscape changing from moment to moment like fi gures in a dream.
The imagination loves to trifl e with what is not. Had this
been indeed the deluge, I should have felt more strongly, but
the emotion would have been similar in kind. I played with
the idea, as the child fl ees in delighted terror from the creations of his fancy. The look of the thing helped me. And
when at last I began to fl ee up the mountain, it was indeed
partly to escape from the raw air that kept me coughing, but it
was also part in play.
As I ascended the mountain-side, I came once more to
overlook the upper surface of the fog; but it wore a different
appearance from what I had beheld at daybreak. For, fi rst,
the sun now fell on it from high overhead, and its surface
shone and undulated like a great nor’land moor country,
sheeted with untrodden morning snow. And next the new
level must have been a thousand or fi fteen hundred feet higher than the old, so that only fi ve or six points of all the bro-
75
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
ken country below me, still stood out. Napa valley was now
one with Sonoma on the west. On the hither side, only a thin
scattered fringe of bluffs was unsubmerged; and through all
the gaps the fog was pouring over, like an ocean, into the blue
clear sunny country on the east. There it was soon lost; for it
fell instantly into the bottom of the valleys, following the water-shed; and the hilltops in that quarter were still clear cut
upon the eastern sky.
Through the Toll House gap and over the near ridges on
the other side, the deluge was immense. A spray of thin vapour
was thrown high above it, rising and falling, and blown into
fantastic shapes. The speed of its course was like a mountain
torrent. Here and there a few treetops were discovered and
then whelmed again; and for one second, the bough of a dead
pine beckoned out of the spray like the arm of a drowning
man. But still the imagination was dissatisfi ed, still the ear
waited for something more. Had this indeed been water (as
it seemed so, to the eye), with what a plunge of reverberating
thunder would it have rolled upon its course, disembowelling
mountains and deracinating pines! And yet water it was, and
sea-water at that – true Pacifi c billows, only somewhat rarefi ed, rolling in mid air among the hilltops.
I climbed still higher, among the red rattling gravel and
dwarf underwood of Mount Saint Helena, until I could look
right down upon Silverado, and admire the favoured nook
in which it lay. The sunny plain of fog was several hundred
feet higher; behind the protecting spur a gigantic accumulation of cottony vapour threatened, with every second, to blow
over and submerge our homestead; but the vortex setting past
76
THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS
the Toll House was too strong; and there lay our little platform, in the arms of the deluge, but still enjoying its unbroken
sunshine. About eleven, however, thin spray came fl ying over
the friendly buttress, and I began to think the fog had hunted out its Jonah after all. But it was the last effort. The wind
veered while we were at dinner, and began to blow squally
from the mountain summit; and by half-past one, all that
world of sea-fogs was utterly routed and fl ying here and there
into the south in little rags of cloud. And instead of a lone
sea-beach, we found ourselves once more inhabiting a high
mountainside, with the clear green country far below us, and
the light smoke of Calistoga blowing in the air.
This was the great Russian campaign for that season. Now
and then, in the early morning, a little white lakelet of fog
would be seen far down in Napa Valley; but the heights were
not again assailed, nor was the surrounding world again shut
off from Silverado.
THE TOLL HOUSE
The Toll House, standing alone by the wayside under nodding pines, with its streamlet and water-tank; its backwoods,
toll-bar, and well trodden croquet ground; the ostler standing by the stable door, chewing a straw; a glimpse of the Chinese cook in the back parts; and Mr. Hoddy in the bar, gravely
alert and serviceable, and equally anxious to lend or borrow
books; – dozed all day in the dusty sunshine, more than half
asleep. There were no neighbours, except the Hansons up
the hill. The traffi c on the road was infi nitesimal; only, at rare
intervals, a couple in a waggon, or a dusty farmer on a springboard, toiling over “the grade” to that metropolitan hamlet,
Calistoga; and, at the fi xed hours, the passage of the stages.
The nearest building was the school-house, down the road;
and the school-ma’am boarded at the Toll House, walking
thence in the morning to the little brown shanty, where she
taught the young ones of the district, and returning thither
pretty weary in the afternoon. She had chosen this outlying situation, I understood, for her health. Mr. Corwin was consumptive; so was Rufe; so was Mr. Jennings, the engineer. In short,
the place was a kind of small Davos: consumptive folk consorting on a hilltop in the most unbroken idleness. Jennings never
did anything that I could see, except now and then to fi sh, and
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THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS
generally to sit about in the bar and the verandah, waiting for
something to happen. Corwin and Rufe did as little as possible; and if the school-ma’am, poor lady, had to work pretty
hard all morning, she subsided when it was over into much
the same dazed beatitude as all the rest.
Her special corner was the parlour – a very genteel
room, with Bible prints, a crayon portrait of Mrs. Corwin in
the height of fashion, a few years ago, another of her son (Mr.
Corwin was not represented), a mirror, and a selection of dried
grasses. A large book was laid religiously on the table – “From
Palace to Hovel,” I believe, its name – full of the raciest experiences in England. The author had mingled freely with all
classes, the nobility particularly meeting him with open arms;
and I must say that traveller had ill requited his reception.
His book, in short, was a capital instance of the Penny Messalina school of literature; and there arose from it, in that cool
parlour, in that silent, wayside, mountain inn, a rank atmosphere of gold and blood and “Jenkins,” and the “Mysteries of
London,” and sickening, inverted snobbery, fi t to knock you
down. The mention of this book reminds me of another and
far racier picture of our island life. The latter parts of Rocam-
bole are surely too sparingly consulted in the country which
they celebrate. No man’s education can be said to be complete,
nor can he pronounce the world yet emptied of enjoyment, till
he has made the acquaintance of “the Reverend Patterson, director of the Evangelical Society.” To follow the evolutions of
that reverend gentleman, who goes through scenes in which
even Mr. Duffi eld would hesitate to place a bishop, is to rise to
new ideas. But, alas! there was no Patterson about the Toll
79
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
House. Only, alongside of “From Palace to Hovel,” a sixpenny
“Ouida” fi gured. So literature, you see, was not unrepresented.
The school-ma’am had friends to stay with her, other
school-ma’ams enjoying their holidays, quite a bevy of damsels. They seemed never to go out, or not beyond the verandah, but sat close in the little parlour, quietly talking or listening to the wind among the trees. Sleep dwelt in the Toll
House, like a fi xture: summer sleep, shallow, soft, and dreamless. A cuckoo-clock, a great rarity in such a place, hooted at intervals about the echoing house; and Mr. Jenning would open
his eyes for a moment in the bar, and turn the leaf of a newspaper, and the resting school-ma’ams in the parlour would
be recalled to the consciousness of their inaction. Busy Mrs.
Corwin and her busy Chinaman might be heard indeed, in
the penetralia, pounding dough or rattling dishes; or perhaps
Rufe had called up some of the sleepers for a game of croquet,
and the hollow strokes of the mallet sounded far away among
the woods: but with these exceptions, it was sleep and sunshine and dust, and the wind in the pine trees, all day long.
A little before stage time, that castle of indolence awoke.
The ostler threw his straw away and set to his preparations.
Mr. Jennings rubbed his eyes; happy Mr. Jennings, the something he had been waiting for all day about to happen at
last! The boarders gathered in the verandah, silently giving
ear, and gazing down the road with shaded eyes. And as yet
there was no sign for the senses, not a sound, not a tremor of
the mountain road. The birds, to whom the secret of the hooting cuckoo is unknown, must have set down to instinct this
premonitory bustle.
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